Ibn Abbas (RA) narrates that a young child of the Prophet (ﷺ) was dying. He picked up the child, held them to his chest, and placed his hand gently on them. The child passed away in his arms.

The Prophet (ﷺ) began to cry.

When Umm Ayman (RA) arrived and saw him crying, she started crying too.

He looked at her. "Ya Umm Ayman, why are you crying?"

She said, "Ya Rasulullah, I'm crying because you're crying. Why should I not cry?"

The Prophet (ﷺ) said something profound: "I am not weeping, but this is mercy."

He was clarifying. This isn't displeasure with Allah's decree. This is compassion. Love for the child.

Then he said: "The believer is in good, whatever the situation." Even when his soul is being pulled from his body, he remains in praise of Allah.

Mercy and surrender can exist together.

Umm Ayman (RA) mostly appears in the background of the seerah. Not many narrations. But you know she was his mother. You know she was the first to hold him. You know the Prophet (ﷺ) honored her in every circumstance.

And then the Prophet (ﷺ) died.

She went completely silent. She watched from a distance as over a hundred thousand people wept. The only person in the room when he was born, now watching an entire Ummah bury him.

After the burial, Abu Bakr (RA) and Umar (RA) went to visit her. The two greatest men alive after the Prophet (ﷺ), coming to check on her, following his example.

They sat down. She began to cry.

So they comforted her: "Don't you know that what Allah has for the Prophet (ﷺ) now is better than what he had here?"

She stopped them.

"I know what Allah has given him is better. That's not why I'm crying."

"Then why?"

"I'm crying because the revelation has ceased to come from the heavens."

Bukhari narrates that all three of them wept together for a long time.

She wasn't just grieving a man. She was grieving the direct connection to Allah that came through him. The boy she nursed, the orphan she consoled, the Prophet she protected—through him came the words of Allah, fresh from the heavens.

The revelation from the heavens had stopped.

But the connection to Allah did not.

For centuries, the place where that connection is renewed every day has been the masjid.

Right now, a masjid in Garin Ali stands nearly complete. Soon, people will gather there to pray, to remember Allah, and to pass on the guidance that began with revelation itself.

Help Build the Masjid

Reflect on this:

Umm Ayman cried for the end of revelation. What are you grieving that goes deeper than the surface?

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